Property. Unpredictability. Trends
January 16, 2007Is it even possible to own art? Or own anything really? All we have can be taken away at any moment, why keep insisting on ownership?
When we started saying we owned something (wonder when that happened, even hunter-gatherers must have felt they owned their tools for example, little children soon learn what is “mine” and what is “yours”) we could start trading things. Here is the basis of our economical thinking. Without property there is no economy. Money is just a means of measuring the value of things, and a convenient aid for trade.
Economy is a very fleeting thing. It’s always surprised me how amazingly unscientific trade and markets really are. They seem to be depending on the tiniest fluctuations of the human mind, totally unpredictable, too complex, totally haphazard, but still following some strange logic. I always laugh when I see “trend researchers” or “futurologists” on various tv-sofas giving us their “inside knowledge” of what our markets will look like in the near future. Trying to predict the future is funny. It should not be taken too seriously, but strangely this “knowledge”, or these educated guesses, are valuable to the market. To constantly be one step ahead is a virtue that could give you the winning edge.
It makes me tired.
As teenagers me and my friend use to laugh about what the next trend could possibly be (at that moment in the mid-nineties grunge was over and the next thing was plastic stuff from Japan and anime). “It’s easy, you just try to find the opposite of what we have now.” And so it goes, back and forth, back and forth. And we keep buying it.
I get back to my favourite hang-up: consumption. I love to hate it, and hate to love it.
Do you think ownership and allegiance to trends may indicate that people like to deck themselves out to signify their sexual, economic and intellectual power for survival and their relative positions in their group based on these? insecurity in any of these areas can be effectively used to persuade people to acquire commodities (including education, here). This enriches certain canny, power-hungry ones among us. Those who have more are more successful, in the quality of their survival and are considered to be smarter.
I forgot to mention, we people are a herd-like lot.
Yes, just following trends is a signal in itself (I’m in the know, I’m fast I’m happening, and this is a virtue). And I’ve often heard it said that today we buy our identities (or the identity we want others to think we have, if you don’t have money you are “less free” to choose an identity…). Of course showing your status with belongings is not so new, it’s just that it is now possible for a larger mass of people to get in the game so to speak.
I think many of our “problems” stem from advertising, I mean, who knew cellulite was bad before there were commersials with smooth-legged women who urged us to get rid of the “problem of cellulite”. At least I didn’t, but I guess I still don’t bother fixing the “problem”. But I’m now aware that some people might think that I should… the same goes for “unwanted” hair